Effect of Modified Atmospheric Storage on Seed Longevity of Soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.]

Abstract

Seed quality is crucial for boosting seed production and productivity. However, soybean seeds are inherently short lived, quickly loses viability even under optimal storage conditions. Therefore, maintaining their quality during storage is of prime importance. Keeping these in view a laboratory experiment was conducted to study the effect of modified atmospheric storage on seed quality of soybean (cv. DSb 34). The freshly harvested seeds with initial moisture content of 7.6% were stored in different modified atmospheric gaseous combinations for nine months from November 2023- August 2024. Results indicated that the seeds stored with gaseous combination of 90 % CO2: 4 % O2: 6 % N2 in 700 gauge polyethylene bag maintained better seed quality in terms of germination (86.77%), shoot length (14.49 cm), root length (12.58 cm), dry weight(0.995g/ 10 seedlings), seedling vigour index I (2349) and II (86.34) upto the end of nine months storage period by recording higher total dehydrogenase (0.438 OD value), α- amylase (10.72 µmol of maltose released min-¹ ml-1 of enzyme) and catalase activity (1.364 µmol H₂O₂ decomposed minˉ¹gˉ¹ protein) compared to all other gaseous combinations and control. Hence, this technique can be used to maintain seed longevity with little deterioration, ensuring the quality of seeds even after extended storage period.